


i shall be telling this with a sigh

by soapboxblues



Category: Grimm (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 12:17:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soapboxblues/pseuds/soapboxblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the moral of marie kessler's story (or five times she trusted her instincts and nothing else and the one time she paid it forward)</p>
            </blockquote>





	i shall be telling this with a sigh

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LithiumDoll](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LithiumDoll/gifts).



> Written for Yuletide 2013. Spoilers through Season One. Title taken from Robert Frost's "The Road Less Traveled." Sincerest thanks to my beta.

_i shall be telling this with a sigh_  
 _somewhere ages and ages hence_

Marie's mother leaves when she is thirteen.

This she and Nick have in common, but it is a fact he can't know because he would ask why. Marie’s mother leaves because her daughters see monsters; because a husband who saw them was enough and there are other reasons, ones that Marie likes to forget because she hates looking back. There are enough ghosts in her rearview mirror to haunt her for decades.

But the truth is Nick's life is one she's quite familiar with. 

As far as beginnings go, it’s a tough one for the both of them.

 

i. kelly

Marie never wanted this life. 

She likes to think that no one does - not the Grimms and certainly not the Wesen. She and Kelly used to talk about running away together, hiding in some remote part of the world where there are no such things as fairy tales. Marie would marry a local and raise a house full of kids, and Kelly would open a bar and seduce tourists. They'd live side by side in little houses and spend every morning watching the sun rise while they drank their coffee on matching front porches.

When Kelly and Marie both leave for college, Kelly's the one who meets a nice boy whose doesn't see monsters, while Marie majors in European History despite the fact that everything about it is a lie. Marie travels the world, and Kelly stops hunting - temporarily, she says - but Marie sees the spark has faded from her eyes. They both still see Wesen everywhere, but Kelly no longer looks twice. Marie is always looking for an angle, a reason to pull her trigger or swing her axe. She never stops waiting for Wesen to show her their worst. Pessimist - Kelly would say.

In the end, she is probably right.

\---

Kelly marries in the spring of her junior year of college. Marie never saw her sister as the marrying type. Maybe this was her only way out, and it's sad to think about so Marie doesn't dwell on it - the same way she doesn't dwell on the empty chair where their mother should be, the polite congratulatory note she sent in its place that Kelly tore to shreds when she thought no one was looking. Reed may be a boring tax accountant, but he looks at Kelly like there's no one else in the world, like there’s nowhere in he'd rather be, and Marie decides that if this is what Kelly needs to do to move on, she will not begrudge her of it.

 

ii. farley

Marie hunts by herself now. Kelly is settled in upstate New York. Her father's hands ache with arthritis so bad he can barely hold a gun, let alone shoot it. There are other Kesslers she could work with, but none that she can trust. Instead she tracks a pack of coyotls up and down the coast and breaks up a war in the heart of the city between a hive of mellifers and a coven of hexenbeists, all the while trying to finish her PhD and put in her classroom hours for a teaching certificate.

She's attempting to capture and interrogate a fuchsbau on finals week of her sophomore year, when she finds someone has beaten her to the punch. The man is her age, maybe a year or so older with bright blue eyes and an elegant smile. The charm contradicts the fuchsbau tied to the rafters behind him. 

Her first thought is Grimm. Her second guess is cop. Then she sees the way his eyes flicker back and forth between her and the fuchsbau who has woged, and she knows he's Wesen. She slams him against the nearest pillar with a force so great it makes the barn walls tremble. She has a knife to his throat before he can take another breath, but the man barely flinches. Instead his smile only grows.

"So you're Marie Kessler," he says. Marie feels a spike of pride in her gut at the awe in his voice, but it fades when she realizes he's still smiling despite his revelation.

"You don't look scared," she says.

"I'm not," he says and the shift ripples over him and Marie feels feathers brushing against her wrist. 

"Steinadler?" She didn't mean to say it out loud, but her excitement outweighs her tact. She's read a lot about this kind of Wesen, and all of it was fascinating.

"Farley," he says quietly, "My name is Farley."

Marie bristles at the distinction, tries to ignore the sincerity in his voice. It's a lost cause. She already feels his name being burned into her subconscious - marking him as something more than Wesen. "What's your business with him?"

"Same as yours I bet," he says and when he nods towards the strung up Wesen, his throat bobs closer to the blade. Marie can feel his pulse against the object, and for the first time in almost a decade she feels unsettled having a weapon. "I'm trying to find his geier."

Marie smirks, trying to maintain her composure. "Need an organ?"

Farley's eyes darken, predatory like she expects from their kind, but filled with the same detest she feels for this particularly brand of Wesen business. She thinks maybe this is one of those rare times that Wesen and Grimm can agree. 

"Not unless they're his," he spits out.

She thinks back to what she has read about his kind. Grimms have worked with and against them. The common thread that has been passed down from generation to generation is trust your gut. Marie's hands clench against the knife before she releases it, stepping back out of his space. 

"Did you get anything out of him?"

Farley is smile is back. It turns out he's got a name and an address, neither of which he plans on divulging, but he persuades Marie to tag along with him. When they find him, she lets him gut and dispose of the geier.

Later he will call this a fitting first date, and she will reluctantly agree.

 

\---

He proposes three years later. This is right after Marie learns of her nephew's birth. Kelly's started hunting again, and she is appalled to hear that her baby sister is shacking up with a Wesen. So is everyone else. Her father disowns her, and she is sure the three attempts on Farley's life that follow her announcing their relationship are gifts from her aunts and uncles. Farley's family is no better, but at least they don't resort to violence. They are pragmatic enough to know not to take any chances trying to off a Grimm.

\---

He has extracurriculars. These are things she turns a blind eye to because it's the only way they will ever work. There are parts of being a Wesen that she cannot understand, parts she doesn't want to know because they will only make her soft. She lets him go off on adventures when her schedule is quiet. Let's him come back with maps and treasures she shouldn’t know of. 

"You shouldn't completely trust me," Farley says, his hands curled around one of his many maps. What Farley can't understand is this - she trusts no one. It's why her father's key stays hidden in the trailer, buried where not even he can find it. It's why she only starts wearing it when Farley is long gone.

\---

They are engaged twelve years.

Something's always coming up - this is what they tell themselves, but the truth is they know the minute they say 'I do' there will be no going back. Finally after a close call in Omaha where Farley winds up in the hospital needing surgery and Marie tries to explain to the nurse that her fiancé has spoken to his family in over ten years, they realize they need to take the final step.

They set a date and plan a wedding.

And then Kelly shows up at their doorstep.

 

iii. nick

Marie's met her nephew a handful of times. The first was when her father died. He was seven, maybe eight, and he refused to look anyone in the eye. He stood closer to his father than his mother, and his smile was too polite for a seven year old when he was introduced to Marie. Marie also remembers he was the only Kessler to cry during the funeral.

He cannot stay with Reed's family. If he does turn out to be a Grimm, they won't know how to handle him. And there are barely any Kesslers left in the U.S. Grimms are already a dying breed. Above all else, he is nothing like the other Kesslers she has known, and she will be damned if she lets the people who tried to kill her sister corrupt that.

She tells all of this to Farley, but it is not enough. He has room in his heart for one Grimm. He cannot take two.

\---

She hasn't seen Nick in almost three years. He has grown from a boy into an awkward and gangly teenager. She expects him to lash out at her. It's what Kelly did when their mother had gone. She fought their father tooth and nail on every subject, from sun up to sun down. Instead, Nick is a quiet teenager, not very troubled, but sad. 

She notices that he is mostly Reed - in looks and in deeds. He has a wry sense of humor, an earnest grin, a natural calming presence that outpaces the anxiousness that has been passed down from generation to generation of Kessler. He has Reed's eyes and nose. Otherwise, he has the distinctive jaw line of the Kesslers and of course, his penchant for never taking anything at face value.

For instance, when Marie tells him this is their home now, he doesn't even bat an eye at that falsehood.

\---

Kelly writes.

Marie keeps telling her not to, but the letters still show up. Postcards. Sentences written in code on the back of envelopes. Little thoughts written on the bylines of bills. Kelly writes like she hunts - concise and to the point, full of cloak and dagger. Marie, who is used to announcing her presence whenever she enters a room, struggles to keep up this charade. 

Kelly tells her she needs to evolve. Like going from engaged and childless to a single woman raising a teenager isn’t evolution enough.

\---

Marie has moved Nick five times in the past two years. He doesn't make a fuss each time she uproots them. Nick makes friends wherever he goes, and she can see how much it hurts him to have to say goodbye each time Marie finds another monster to chase. He adjusts well to life on the road. He looks too comfortable curled up in the passenger side of her truck, too at ease in motel rooms and cheap apartments. He never says a word, but Marie can tell he adapts out of necessity - some instinct born from being a Kessler. 

The reality is he hates it. He hates the cards he's been dealt. He misses his father and his mother and his warm bed and the consistency of a normal life. He misses all the things Marie never learned to want.

_i don't know how to do this,_ Marie confesses, despite the fact that admitting defeat is not something she and Kelly ever do. Their failures are their own burdens to carry, which is why she is so surprised to receive Kelly's response: _and you think I did?_

The one thing that Kelly got right, Marie thinks, was to give her son roots, and so Marie sucks it up and buys a house back in New York for Nick's senior year of high school. When he sees the mortgage papers, his face splits into a giant smile, and Marie finds herself wondering how she could have missed that smile so much when she had never seen it before. 

Nick thrives once they've settled down. His grades were always good, but he pulls in straight A’s now. He joins the football team, and she manages to make it to at least half of his games. He starts at quarterback and gets himself a pretty girlfriend who he takes to homecoming and prom. Marie even takes photos and helps him pick out a corsage (she tries not to think about the first flowers Farley bought her - forget-me-nots because they had their own little German back-story).

Nick thanks her. Just once, though she knows there have been plenty of times where he's almost done so and lost his courage. Brave as he is there is one hurdle that all Kesslers fear and that is human emotion. 

So when he does finally press her hands in his and tells her how much he appreciates everything she's done for him, looking her straight in the eyes as he does so, Marie has never been prouder.

 

iv. the monsters

_why haven't you showed him yet?_

It's one sentence written on the back of her mortgage bill, and Marie tries not to think about how stupid it is for Kelly to show up here, tries to pretend she did it to catch a glimpse of her son and not to prove to Marie that she can. (Because it's still a game - after all these years - and Kelly's always playing catch up).

Marie remembers the day she learned about Wesen. Later, she will tell Nick it started with dreams, strange visions - a subtle shift. She will lie. The truth is their father waits until George, the baby of the family, turns thirteen and then he takes them outside where he forces a hexenbeist to shift in front of them. Marie's brain wasn't ready for it. She will never forget the pure terror, the absolute shock that flooded her system. 

It charged at them - wild and feral. It was Marie, the one with her nose in her books and her head in the clouds, who picked up the axe and in one clear swoop nearly beheaded the monster. Kelly was still frozen in her spot and George wouldn't stop screaming. Marie could hear her heartbeat in her ears. It was steady so long as she kept the weapon in her hands. Her father tried to pry it from her, but Marie would not budge. Minutes, hours, she wasn't sure how long it stayed there, but from that moment on, she never strayed far from a weapon.

Her father told them the stories then, and Kelly was the first to come to terms with what it meant. She was the first to pick up the axe and follow him into the city on a hunt. Marie watched them bring back body after body until her numbness faded into tolerance and then finally acceptance. She never got back what she lost.

George was never ready for it. He was not a Grimm, and so he spent the rest of his life in and out of mental hospitals before he finally got himself locked up for good. That is one of the possibilities awaiting Nick if he isn't what they think he is.

_if you want him to learn the way we did, you can come back here and do it yourself,_ Marie writes. It's the last letter either of them sends for years.

\---

"I'm thinking about college in Oregon," Nick pauses, lip drawn between his teeth. Marie would like to tell him that it reminds her of his mother, but those are things they never talk about. He slides a pamphlet her way and she eyes it without picking it up. "They have a really great criminal justice program."

Marie doesn't realize he is waiting for her response until the silence grows too thick between them. She realizes then that Nick is begging for her to say something, not just anything though. He wants her to say no. 

The word 'stay' dances on the tip of her tongue, but what comes out instead is, "You do what makes you happy."

Nick doesn't bother looking upset. He skips straight to resigned, small uneven smile - the same one he wore when she first met him. She knows it's not the answer he was looking for, but she realizes it might be the only time she gets to tell him to do what feels good and she finds herself content in what her instincts provided her.

And of course, she sells the house as soon as Nick's made it through his first semester at college, and Nick - he doesn't mention it once.

\---

Marie starts to travel again. 

She still sees Nick from time to time - whenever she finds herself on the West Coast or whenever he feels like taking a trip across the country. Nick graduates and becomes a cop which pleases Marie to no end. They teach him basic hand to hand combat training, how to fire a weapon, how to expect the unexpected and brace yourself for the imaginable. It's one less thing she'll need to prepare him for.

Over ten years, Nick works his way up from beat cop to detective. Marie sees him less and less over this time. He still calls almost weekly. Still emails when he's too busy to call.

Each year Kelly writes a letter asking _why haven't you told him?_

Each time Marie looks for a sign from Nick (admission of nightmares, bags under his eyes when he's not working a giant case, paranoia). There are none so far, and until there is one she's not going to say a word.

\---

Nick meets Juliette somewhere around the time that Marie and Kelly start speaking again.

They are two months into their relationship, and he's head over heels in love. That would be the only reason he would call Marie to tell her. Nick plays everything close to the chest. His girlfriends were never secrets but the way he felt about them always was. Nick tells Marie that Juliette is the best thing to ever happen to him, and Marie frowns when she congratulates him, happy that Nick can't see it.

Marie doesn't know why she felt the need to tell her sister about the girl. Maybe it was because when Nick talks about Juliette, he sounds just like Reed did when he spoke about her. 

_it won't end well,_ Kelly writes. Marie ignores the tear stains on the postcard. If she stares at them too long, her own will join them.

_None of them do,_ she replies.

 

v. death

The diagnosis hits her out of nowhere.

She takes a routine physical for her job at the library and suddenly they're asking to run more tests. Cancer was not meant to kill a Kessler – not when there were a thousand Wesen lining up to take their shot.

_suck it up,_ Kelly would say, but it's been twenty years and she's still not here. Marie stopped asking if she was ever coming back. So instead, just this once, she lets herself grieve.

\---

"You were supposed to live forever," Nick says, with just enough of a smile to pull one from her. She reaches across the table and clasps his hands in hers. She tells him she is going to fight it, and he believes her because he has to. 

She still doesn't tell him about monsters.

\---

_i'll die soon,_ Marie sends it on a postcard from Tahiti. She's never been, but once upon a time, she was supposed to honeymoon there. Juliette and Nick are there on vacation and Marie wonders if Nick took her there to propose. He sends two postcards back, one filled with greetings, the other blank for her collection. He doesn't know that the postcards are actually trophies - bookmarks from all the places she's taken lives. 

Fitting - she thinks - leaving this last note here.

\---

Kelly never responds.

\---

She sees Farley one last time in Phoenix.

She's not sure who finds who or how he knows that she is dying, but she decides it doesn't matter. They watch the sunset, drinking coffee side by side. They never did this when they were together, but she knows now they would have liked it. 

"Will he be good at it?" Farley asks as the last of the light disappears from view.

Marie clenches his hand. She is heading to Oregon tomorrow, terminal diagnosis in hand, and only hopes that Nick has not seen too much already. 

"Kelly told me once that when Nick was five, he wanted to grow up to be a wolf. Kelly asked him why, of course, because she was so sure he was already seeing Wesen, but he said it was because no one really understood what it was like to be a wolf and it was a shame."

Farley laughs. "So the world’s next Grimm wants to be a blutbaden?"

"Nick wants to understand," Marie says, quietly, "He wants to understand everything around him."

Farley smiles and it's the same smile he was wearing the day they met - the one that tells her he knows everything there is to know about Marie Kessler. "Who does that remind you of?"

Marie shakes her head. "He'll be better than me."

Farley looks away, back over the mountains. There is no light left, just an endless void of darkness. He stares as though if he tries hard enough, he can bring back the light. As if he could make this day never end. 

"Nothing could be better than you."

 

and i.

 

As she dies, she is thinking of Farley. She is thinking of that very first hexenbeist she killed and of every kill and every free pass thereafter. The lives lost and saved. She thinks of Nick and the decision to take him in and the decision to wait for the nightmares. She thinks of the blutbaden Nick just wants to understand and the pretty redhead who never will. 

With her last breath, she tells him the moral of the story - her story - to trust his instincts and nothing else. 

In the end, she dies in the arms of what her instincts gave her.

It turns out it was a good ending.


End file.
